Constitutional challenges have been rejected under due process, taking, jury trial, open courts and various other state constitutional provisions. It makes sense. While compensatory damages might present a closer question (depending on issues such as retroactivity), there’s simply no constitutional right for one private party to demand that another private party be punished.

Especially not when the putative purpose of the damages, to inflict financial distress on the target, has been obviated by an intervening bankruptcy.

One union (SEIU) wins $1.5 million verdict against another (NUHW) [Fox, Jottings]

“Anti-Law School Blogs Seek to Keep Others from Making ‘Same Mistake We Did'” [Legal Blog Watch, WSJ Law Blog] Instruction at University of Texas law school has room for improvement [Blackbook Legal] Chief Justice Roberts: law review articles aren’t particularly helpful for practitioners or judges [WSJ Law Blog]

“As I am sure you can appreciate from your years of work with the board, control of use of a mark by enthusiastic students and parents is quite simply not practical, and I know the school and board would not want to be in the position of censoring student expression associated with the design,” wrote Judith Powell, an attorney for Chrysler.

P.S. Commenter VMS: “Sometimes corporations need to use their marketing brains rather than their legal muscle…. If Walter Chrysler were still around, he would have instructed his lawyers to license the mark to the team at minimal cost.”

Update: High school yields and a Chrysler lawyer explains the company’s rationale for not doing a license.

“The House approved legislation on Thursday that would grant Chrysler and General Motors dealerships the right to challenge the companies’ decisions to close them in third-party arbitration.” The measure apparently has the support not only of Democratic leaders but of House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio). [NYT]

Readers might remember the Mraz case, where a driver was run over by his own truck because he failed to engage the parking brake, and a jury nevertheless awarded $55 million. (March 8 and March 21, 2007.)

The Chrysler bankruptcy threw a wrench into the appellate process. Given the number of unsecured (and secured!) creditors who were taking a haircut on what Chrysler owed them, and the weakness of the case, one would expect the claim to be extinguished. But Chrysler unilaterally (and almost certainly politically) decided not to extinguish product-liability lawsuits against it, and the Mraz case has settled for $24 million. (Amanda Bronstad, “Chrysler bankruptcy judge approves $24 million personal injury settlement”, National Law Journal, Sep. 25). Of course, the likely $8-$10 million attorneys’ fee in this case is being funded by taxpayers’ bailout money.